California state employees as well as employees of the University of California are prohibited from using state funds to travel to eight states that have enacted laws limiting the rights of LGBT people.

Last week, California’s Attorney General added four states to the travel ban – Alabama, Kentucky, South Dakota, and Texas. State employees were already prohibited from traveling on official business to the states of Kansas, Mississippi, North Carolina and Tennessee under a law adopted by the State Legislature last year. The law, AB 1887, bars state-funded travel to states that allow discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity. The use of state funds to travel to these eight states is prohibited unless certain required circumstances apply. The ban does not affect travel that is paid for or reimbursed using non-state funds.

For specifics on the travel ban, please review this list of Frequently Asked Questions prepared by the UC Office of the President. If you have additional questions, please contact the UCSF Controller’s Office at (415) 476-2126 and [email protected].

I am writing to inform you about several upcoming changes within the leadership of the University Development and Alumni Relations (UDAR) organization.

First, Vice Chancellor John Ford has informed me that he will retire at the end of 2017, as was his plan when he joined UCSF in September of 2012. John brought forty years of development experience to UCSF, including twenty years as vice president at Stanford. With that background, John has made significant contributions to our university, both as the leader of UDAR and as a member of my leadership team. I am grateful for John’s service to UCSF. He has helped my team and many members of the faculty understand how development can be integrated into the fabric of the university and support the overarching goals of the university while helping individual faculty members advance their programs. John has encouraged many of us to think boldly about the future and has helped shape the ideas that have inspired some very big gifts to UCSF.

Second, I am pleased to announce that Associate Vice Chancellor Jennifer Arnett will be John’s successor. Jennifer is well positioned to lead the UDAR organization, having served as second-in-command since November 2012.

Together John and Jennifer have built a strong team at UDAR while growing private gifts and grants dramatically. Cash receipts totaled $595 million this past fiscal year, placing UCSF among the top five universities in gifts received for the second consecutive year. UCSF was the only public university among the top ten institutions in fundraising results.

In partnership with Bill Oberndorf, chair of the UCSF Board of Overseers, they have helped reorganize...

I am happy to report that NIH announced today that it will not implement the Grant Support Index (GSI) plan first made public at the beginning of May (see my June 1 email). This decision was in response to substantial feedback and concerns received from the community; UCSF was very active in that discussion, and many will be pleased with this outcome.

Also announced following yesterday’s Advisory Committee to the [NIH] Director meeting is a new effort, the Next Generation Researchers Initiative, which seeks to “increase the number of NIH-funded early-stage and mid-career investigators and to stabilize the career trajectory of scientists” (https://grants.nih.gov/ngri.htm). This plan will extend the payline for early-stage and mid-career scientists, at an estimated cost of $210 million in the first year, ramping up to $1.1 billion in year five, using funds obtained from “rearranging priorities in other categories.” Greater emphasis also will be placed on existing NIH programs that serve scientists in these career stages.

While NIH will not move forward with GSI, they intend to pursue “the development and testing of metrics that can be used to assess the impact of NIH grant support on scientific progress.” We will track those plans closely, with the expectation that stakeholders will have the opportunity to provide input in the process similar to what occurred with the GSI concept.